In old cities, streets had no names and numbers. If one needed to find someone, one had to know the name of the house. In Amsterdam, many houses had special signs - decorative plaques on which the sculptor could show what he was worth.
Before street numbers were introduced in 1795, many of Amsterdam’s residences were identified by their wall tablets. These painted or carved stone plaques generally dating from the mid-17th century were practical decorations to identify not only the inhabitants’ house but also their origin, religion or profession. Beautiful examples of these stones are still found on many of the buildings along the main canals. Occupations are the most frequently occurring theme: tobacconists, milliners, merchants, skippers, undertakers and even grass-mowers.
As well as being colorful reminders of the city’s former citizens, these tablets also provide hints about the city’s past. A stone depicting a mail wagon at Singel 74 commemorates the commencement of the postal service between Amsterdam and The Hague in 1660. Farther down the street a tablet portraying the scene of Eve tempting Adam with an apple attests to the time when that part of the street operated as a fruit market.
Quite a few rare and beautiful Wall Tablets are to be found in Amsterdam. The barrels on a simple gable stone on the house at the Nieuwe Leliestraat 84 suggest that it was built by cooper or, less likely, a brewer. Another elaborate tablet shows a paper mill. It is now at the corner of the Keizersgracht and the Leliegracht, which was built in 1649 for a paper merchant named Pieter Haack.
A wall tablet is in a bakery in the Eerste Tuindwarsstraat 19. To the right, the baker puts a bread into the oven; to the left, an assistant is preparing loafs on a table, on which the scales are also to be seen.
The Wall Tablets outside the chemists and drugstores had representations of yawning men, often with a turban, as a sign outside their shops. They are unique for the Netherlands; about 150 of them are kept at the Dutch Drugstore Museum in Maarssen.
Other stone tablets showed saints. The evangelist Luke as a painter, together with a bull, his iconographic symbol can be seen. The theme of the four evangelists was not uncommon. Ta many places they are sitting at the Kolksteeg 1: Luke, a beardless John, Matthew (with some money; he was a publican), and Mark. The crown on top of them is a common motif on these tablets.
Many wall tablets dotted throughout the city celebrate the life of famous citizens like the maritime hero Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter and biologist Jan Swammerdam, but the most appealing are memorials to domestic life and common vocations of the age.
Some tablets show animals. De vliegende vos, but the animal depicted here resembles the winged horse In the Bloemstraat 20, D' PELLECAEN means, of course, ‘the pelican’. The bird was believed to pick in its own breast and to feed its children with its blood. This pelican was, therefore, not only a lovely bird, but also a symbol of charity. The crowned water dog decorates the house at the Nieuwe Leliestraat 107.
These wall tablets are unique and one can always wonder at their artistic quality.
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